Now, apply afresh for vacant seats in colleges

KOLKATA: Several colleges affiliated to Calcutta University on Thursday initiated the process of inviting fresh applications to fill up the vacant seats in their undergraduate courses after the state government decided to extend the admission deadline for all colleges and universities to August 20.


While some colleges issued notice on Thursday itself, inviting fresh applications, some others decided to wait for a day or two to strengthen their online system before restarting the process. The government has made it mandatory for colleges to conduct the entire admission process-—from application to payment of registration fees—online to prevent the meddling of students’ unions in the process.

Derozio Memorial College at Rajarhat, where almost 40% seats have remained vacant so far, will provide almost a week’s time to candidates to complete the admission procedure online. “The government has set the new deadline at August 20, which gives us a lot of time to complete the admission procedure,” said principal of the college Dibyendu Talapatra.

Both Syamaprasad College, the night section of Asutosh College, and Surendranath College will invite fresh applications in a couple of days. “We had a meeting of our admission sub-committee on Thursday. We will invite fresh applications in a day or two,” said Surendranath College principal Indranil Kar.

The admission committee meeting at Lady Brabourne College is slated for early next week. “The specifics of inviting fresh applications and determining the criteria will be decided at that time,” said principal Siuli Sarkar .

Many colleges, like Bhawanipur Education Society, want to wrap up the process before the monthend so that the new entrants can catch up with the others, who have already started classes. “We would not want the students taking admission at this stage to miss out on the syllabus. So, we will wrap up this second round before the month-end,” said Miraj Shah, vice-chairman of the college, which has close to 100 vacant seats, most of which are in the humanities stream.

The admissions to the undergraduate courses at CU-affiliated colleges this year were mired in controversy following candidates’ allegations of extortion by students’ unions at several colleges in the name of getting them seats. The corruption in the process was so deeply entrenched that chief minister Mamata Banerjee warned unions not to meddle in admissions. In fact, the students’ unions at several institutes were dismantled and the education minister issued an order, making the entire process online in a bid to the keep the unions at bay. Police had to be deployed at several institutes to contain trouble. “It seems many candidates got scared seeing cops outside colleges and went away without taking admissions. The fresh extension of dates for admissions will give such students a chance to enrol themselves for undergraduate courses,” said the principal of a south Kolkata institute.

The admission committees at almost all the colleges have streamlined their online system to ensure none of the candidates have to visit the institutes before admission is done. “We will abide by the government guidelines about online admissions. For filling forms to paying admission fees, candidates will not have to visit the college,” said Sushmita Mukherjee, vice-principal at Syamaprasad College.